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Distribution List of Papyri from the 1928 Purchase

(In making this distribution list I have acted in conformity with the terms of conversation with Prof. Campbell Bonner, representing Michigan, and Mr. Garrett representing Princeton. As the papyri were so few in number the British Museum has not asked for more than the two in which it was specially interested and I understood also from Prof. Bonner that the University of Michigan did not desire to claim a large share. The higher cost of its selection is due to the superior average quality of the papyri assigned to it, literary pieces being more numerous than in the other allotments, and particularly to the price (£E15) which I thought reasonable for the unusually extensive and interesting mathematical fragments numbered II.6. The papyri as a whole prove to be exceptionally moderate in price, and the first prices which I assigned to the better single pieces added up to £E146 1/2 as against the actual total payments of only £E124 (which includes £E2 paid for the railway fares allowed the natives of Behneseh from whom lot I was purchased). I therefore revised certain of the prices in each allotment, bringing down the difference to £E10 and finally made the following deductions from the totals so established, having regard, in the difference between Oslo and Princeton on the one hand and Michigan and Columbia on the other, to one or two pieces in their allotments with regard to which I had been a little doubtful as to the pricing:- Oslo and Princeton £E3 each, Michigan and Columbia £E2 each. In the following lists an asterisk before a number indicates that the papyrus so marked was not priced at all in reckoning the total cost. Literary pieces are marked with an L.

Payment should in all cases be made to the Univesity of Michigan, which advanced the money for the purchases.

H.I.B.

The last part of the document show what each institution paid and what they received. Here is only a brief desciption: